It was an agonizingly long night for supporters of Tony Evers gathered at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Madison, Wisconsin, as vote totals projected by CNN on a giant screen showed Evers narrowly ahead of divisive, two-term Republican Governor Scott Walker. Into the wee hours on Wednesday morning, the race was deadlocked, with several precincts still not reporting.
Carole Trone
“Hopefully I’ll find out something good, but if I don’t, I’d rather know tonight,” said Madison public school teacher Susan Stern, who was trying to make up her mind whether to stick it out as the clock passed midnight. “If I get up in the morning and find out he lost, I’ll be a mess when I get to school.”
Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan joined the Orpheum crowd, after giving a rousing speech at Senator Tammy Baldwin’s victory party, celebrating her win over Koch-brothers-backed Republican opponent, Leah Vukmir by ten points.
“I think it’s going to work out,” Pocan said of Evers’s race, as he hovered around the entrance to the theater refreshing vote-count totals on his phone. “Look he’s up by . . . 118 votes,” he added, laughing.
Wisconsinites, like progressive and Democratic voters nationwide, were almost afraid to be hopeful throughout the campaign. Burned by successive Walker victories, despite a historic outpouring of public opposition to his attacks on teachers, schools, and public services, and then by Donald Trump, who turned the state red for the first time since Ronald Reagan was elected, Wisconsinites took a cautiously optimistic, wait-and-see attitude.
“Obviously I’m on pins and needles,” said Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who ran and lost against Walker twice—in 2010, when the Walker was first elected, and then in a 2012 recall election spurred by massive public protests. “I’ve visited thirty-five high schools in the last two months, talking to seniors, and I’m worried photo I.D. is having a real impact,” Barrett said.
In the end, it came down to the city of Milwaukee, where more than 45,000 uncounted absentee ballots broke in Evers’s favor.
As news of the absentee votes spread through the room at the Orpheum, the mood turned to relief.
The nailbiter was emblematic of midterm elections across the country on Tuesday that delivered mixed results.
Finally, at 1:30 in the morning, Evers, the soft-spoken, white-haired state superintendent of public instruction walked onstage to declare victory, along with his dynamic, young African American running mate, Mandela Barnes.
“Oh my God. It’s like a miracle,” said a jubilant Democratic Assemblywoman Chris Taylor.
While Walker was still not conceding defeat on Wednesday morning, the vote count appeared to be insurmountable, and the Associated Press and other news outlets declared Evers the winner.
The nailbiter was emblematic of midterm elections across the country on Tuesday that delivered mixed results. In Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Kansas, Republican governors were replaced by Democratic challengers. Democrats captured control of the House of Representatives But they fell short in the Senate, where closely watched races broke for the Republicans in Florida and Texas, as rising stars Andrew Gillum and Beto O’Rourke went down to defeat. In the Georgia governor’s race, Stacey Abrams was still refusing to concede her tight race on Wednesday morning.
Education, the major theme of the Wisconsin governor’s race, was a galvanizing issue across the country.
In Arizona, voters handily defeated a ballot measure that would have taken school vouchers statewide, despite massive backing by wealthy interests, including the Koch-brothers-financed Goldwater Institute.
“It’s become apparent that education is something our communities really value,” said Kim Kohlhaas, president of the Wisconsin chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, at the Tony Evers victory party.
Brutal budget cuts to schools, and privatization schemes such as school vouchers, which take money from public schools to cover the cost of some families’ private-school tuition, are proving unpopular with the public.
Scott Walker was the national, public face of school privatization, education budget-cutting, and aggressive attacks on unions.
Scott Walker was the national, public face of school privatization, education budget-cutting, and aggressive attacks on unions.
His defeat—part of a Democratic sweep of governor’s mansions in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, three states that helped elect Trump in 2016—turned a national political tide. Voters rejected the budget-slashing, union-busting politicians who have been riding roughshod over the Midwest for the last eight years.
And despite massive spending by business groups and rightwing billionaires, citizens showed strong support for progressive candidates who promised to address voters’ real needs—for health care, education, and adequate infrastructure.
“I’m proud to be a Wisconsin progressive,” Tammy Baldwin told the crowd at her victory party at Monona Terrace in downtown Madison on Tuesday night.
“The Koch brothers hit me with $14 million worth of nasty attack ads, and in the end it didn’t matter, because I had something they did not: you,” Baldwin said.
That message summed up the hard fought battle between organized citizens and rightwing candidates including Baldwin’s opponent, Leah Vukmir. A former national chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council, Vukmir is a proponent of school privatization, and the beneficiary of rightwing billionaire support.
The 2018 midterms prove the public will get behind candidates who defend the public interest. But it can be a long, hard fight.
Baldwin’s ten-point margin of victory also showed that an outspoken progressive (and an out lesbian) can continue to win decisively, even in a divided state that helped elect Donald Trump.
The message to voters was simple. As Tony Evers put it in his victory speech, “I’ll be focused on solving problems, not picking political fights.”
That was welcome news to exhausted Wisconsin voters, who showed that they have had enough of “divide and conquer”—and a balm in an era of division and conquest, nationwide.